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Funny that they make an article about this. My grandpa bought his steel frame Diamant race bike at age 14, and is now 82. He doesn't use it for longer trips or when using his trailer (he has an ebike for that) but short trips like to the trains are still riden on it.

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We've been in the mid manufacturing era for quite a while, when every part is engineered to fail the day after the warranty expires. Maybe the idea of a bicycle that can last seven decades is interesting to people.

Why would a modern bike fail when the warranty expires? If you want a bike that lasts 70 years you either need to be fine with not having much more effective brakes/gearing or just do regular maintenance on it.

There are plenty of products (eg. especially cars) that are much, much more reliable than their older counterparts.

Because it is produced as cheaply as possible to survive the warranty to make most profit.

And when a bike costs more, as a layman, you have a hard time judging if it costs more because of more profit or better quality.

I’m not sure I agree with the entire premise. Maybe it’s true about the cheapest bikes but that’s because bikes used to be considerably more expensive on average.

If you’re willing to pay the same (inflation adjusted) I think the overall quality is considerably better than 30+ years ago.

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